Concerning Blood Elves...
To all of you who read my article concerning Blizzard’s decision to make the male Blood Elves more masculine (and there are a lot of you), I want to say that my decision to use the term ‘homophobe’ was rash and reactionary. However, one has to acknowledge that such sentiments are very much present in the gaming community, especially in games such as World of Warcraft, where the terms ‘fag’ ‘faggot’ and ‘gay’ are used in a negative context, frequently. Let’s not even get started on Xbox Live where teenage boys and adult men throw out these terms with little regard for who may be on the other side. Now, if one were subject to such ‘beat downs’ on a regular basis, would one not expect them to react somewhat angrily to such an action?
In hindsight, the term ‘homophobe’ should not have been featured so prominently. It misrepresented myself as intolerant, which I am far from being as anyone that knows me would attest to. One thing I will not do is back down from what I said as I feel very strongly about it. The mission of this site is to make the gaming community aware that there are lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender gamers out there and that acceptance and tolerance is something we strive for. In creating a space for gay and straight gamers to come together and share a mutual interest, we believe we have succeeded beyond our expectations. It is something that I and the GayGamer staff are very proud of.
Now for the comments. While I did push a hot button in my choice of words, one look through our comments show we have a lot of support out there and we did receive some constructive criticism, which I am very open to. ...but, we also have a lot of people out there who posted genuinely homophobic comments. Those which were most inflammatory were deleted and several contained very strong hate speech. If that doesn’t send up a flag about homophobia in the gaming community, I don’t know what does.
At least the Blood Elf males will retain their voices, which, if you’ve not heard them, are quite, as Fruit Brute put it, fey!
Super Timsy
Posted to Video Games on 27 October 2006
· Comments (29)
Other stuff like this: blood elves, homophobia, mmorpg, world of warcraft, wow
Hey, if it looks like a skunk, walks like a skunk and smells like a skunk, it’s a skunk!
A HUGE portion of the online gaming community is at the very least unaware and/or naive as to how their comments (“that’s so gay,” etc.) affect gay gamers and at most homophobic.
I don’t think it’s “intolerant” to suggest Blizzard execs may be not-so-gay-friendly, or at least bowing to not-so-gay-friendly consumers.
Anyway, I say “cheers! keep up the good work” :)
I’m sorry, I played WoW for a long time. Your gut reactions IMO were not incorrect. Ultimately I would say the source of changes are indeed homophobic in nature. Now, whether it was consciously such on the part of the developers or just mollification of those players with such feelings is impossible to tell without inside knowledge of Blizzard’s in-house discussions. Since Blizzard themselves enjoys refusing to admit the true motivation on which it bases decisions like this and others in the recent past (guild advertising, ToS changes), there’s very little else that can be assumed.
In response to d-pad’s tired cliche…
Money talks, shit walks. As long as gay gamers that percieve homophobia in WoW continue to pay, nothing is going to change. I didn’t think this was a big deal, or at least as big of a deal that the Gay Guilds of WoW faced before, but if Blizzard keeps doing things that make you upset why not giving them your money?
I speak good english. My post should read…
...but if Blizzard keeps doing things that make you upset why not stop giving them your money?
[we need an edit post thingy]
Blizzard may not have done it out of homophobia, but the original response by the players that it was “too feminine” was.
And they’ll delude themselves that it wasn’t, but the only reason they would be concerned about a character being too feminine is because they somehow think it will make them look gay. It’s just part of our culture and it’s stupid.
Ok so lets see, the male blood elves have really gay voices and a really gay dance (found on google here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-369440845305749502&hl=en) and you think they just aren’t gay enough because they made them a bit more muscular? Don’t you think there are better battles for us to fight?
If the blood elves had looked like that from day one we’d probably all be cheering that Blizzard finally put in some great gay characters.
Actually here’s a better dance video of the male blood elf
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=42315528289738158&hl=en
Hmmm…
That apology seemed too elaborate, man.. Did someone say something to you?
Anyway: you’re completely forgiven for being so furious; this does indeed seem homophobic. BUT on the other hand, we do have a muscle-mary cliché among the gay community. So now we have our very own Blood Elves Muscle Mary’s..
Anyway, I neither like the muscled or slender body types; I am, myself, a Level 60 Dwarf Hunter; I may roll a Daernei (so cooooool).. The only real good argument I read about this muscling up subject was from someone (I forget who) who, rightly so, remembered that casters are not known for their physicality or brute force, so a buff up version is completely out of order.. but hey…. it was a commercial decision, you gotta please those 14 year olds.
And d+pad is right, and I have been saying it all the time.. “gay” is now a word meaning “bad” or “uncool” or “lame”... that’s what kids are saying these days… we have to change that first, don’t we…
And the blood elf is not gay, its an awesome copy of Napolean Dynamite’s killer last act on that very, very, very weird movie.
Seeing as Blizzard’s track record in the past isn’t so great in regards to homosexuals, it’s pretty forgivable to assume this is just more of the same even if it turns out not to be. We love you, timsy!
Well put, darling! I’m glad that we had readers who could sound off about their feelings concerning tolerance and acceptance in WoW.
Timsy, it takes a good person to make an apology like that. Regardless if I agree, good job and keep up the great work on bringing us these stories!
I’m disappointed that you’d apologize :/
Geez, this is a blog. And it’s called GayGamer.
Don’t sweat it. It’s an easy conclusion to come to, especially when RPing is something psychologists could probably have a field day with.
Well, that picture doesn’t look quite as buff as the one dancing in his undies. I can live with that, but I hope I can still have the hair on the leaner elf model.
However, after listening to those voice clips, I think I’ve fallen in love with the Draenei!
Thanks, I really appreciate everyone’s support and any constructive criticism I received. I would like to note, however, that I have not apologized for my remarks (nor will I), I only acknowledged that dropping the ‘H-bomb’, if you will, may have been too rash an action and more thought should have been given when making such a broad generalization. As Tiny put it, next time I’ll count to ten and then make a decision on what to write. ;p
Not to throw a monkey wrench in the works, but i’m 38, and we were using the term “gay” as a negative term even when I was a kid, so this is not a new phenomenon. And, as odd as this might sound, it doesn’t bother me. When kids say something is “gay”, I don’t feel like it’s a homophobic comment. We now say “the shit”, “dope”, “retarded”, or “stupid” to refer to good things, completely unrelated to actual retardation or stupidity. There’s a fine line: If someone calls you a faggot, they’re being derogatory. If someone says something is “gay”, I honestly don’t think they are, unless they’re actually calling something “gay” that is, indeed, homosexual.
Remember that the homosexual community took terms like “gay” and “queer” from their original meaning and applied them to a different contexts very different from their original meaning, so I think it’s presumptuous to assume someone calling something “gay” must necessarily relate to a homosexual slur.
My 2 cents.
I’ll agree with Spaz.
Haven’t you people ever refered to something as “gay” just to make light fun of it? :)
I know that me and my friends have called something “gay” (a movie, a singer, a dance, an event) but never in a bad way.
What about “lame”?
Wouldn’t someone who is actually lame (that is, deprived of legs), feel offended by the fact that people these days refer to useless things as lame?
Yeah, I think that people have to understand that just as “gay” once meant “joyful and carefree” and then gained the additional meaning of “awesome”, it has since gained a third meaning among my generation and those after (I’m 37), meaning roughly “lame, AND the people involved are overly enthusiastic despite its lameness.” People often suggest the use of the word “lame” because they’re not familiar with the connotative differences between the two.
So, to use a South Park example, a school presentation on the environment might be merely lame, but a school presentation on environmental activism with grinning people doing a musical number with the expectation that it will turn the hearts of 4th graders would be “totally gay”. (In fact, any presentation that begins with “Hey, kids!”, if not satirical, is probably “totally gay”.)
It reminds me when a friend of mine years ago got suspended from high school for using the term “niggardly” in a term paper. (Look it up.) Thankfully it wasn’t in English class, but thin-skinned people—and people who are thin-skinned on behalf of other people—are everywhere.
And for the record, I don’t even like being called a faggot when a guy’s got me handcuffed and is making me shine the zipper on his chaps with my tongue, so it isn’t like I’m some kind of Uncle Tom here.
Calling something “gay” is offensive. We need to rememeber that we live in a society that not only treats GLBT people as second-class citizens but also frequently delights in mocking them. In that context, it’s quite cheeky to ask any gay person not to be offended by the word “gay” being used in a negative way.
I play WoW regularly and anytime someone starts using excessively homophobic phrases (and this happens a LOT), they go on my ignore list, so I never have to play with them. My ignore list was huge until the retrograde cleared it out. So assuming a large part of the WoW community is homophobic (including the staff, with comments like the male blood elves were “too feminine”) was not completely unwarranted.
I really have to wonder how the homophobes find their way in here. Maybe posting hateful shit on gaygamer.net is the first step to coming out…. I know that when I was 15, I’d go into the “alternative lifestyles” room on Quantum Link and do a little baiting so that I could engage some of them in private conversation….
Richie, I understand where you’re coming from, but having spent some time as a gay activist in my youth I’m afraid I just don’t have any time for someone who says “LGBT” like my interests are the same as lesbians, bisexual people and trannies. I have friends in all three categories (in fact, it seems I am ever so slightly bisexual myself) but the only thing that we have in common is that we’re sexual minorities.
I am gay and I have no problem using the word gay in its unrelated, dismissive sense to describe something that is lame but taken more seriously than it should be. (For example: World of Warcrack is pretty fucking gay.) I’m not using it to demean myself or other gay people any more than a lesbian is demeaning her kind by referring to a large artificial ridge of land designed to hold back some water as a dyke.
I’m just sad because for once the male of a race looked normal. They looked normal!!! I’m a proportions freak and all the top-heaviness of every single other race bugged me so much… I thought I’d have an escape! But alas… my aesthetic senses will make me chose the female once again.
I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong with his arm…
You all need to be a little more thick skinned. I’m a transsexual gamer, and never in my life have I been bothered by “that’s so gay” or “you’re a fag” when it’s intended as a generic insult. It’s not the word, it’s the meaning behind the word. One of the things that really angers me about the gay community is many of it’s members are far too up in arms for their own good. It turns into a politically correct shit fest over every little thing they can dissect as offensive. Almost every group does it but it’s extremely embarrassing for the rest of it. You see it as some sort of homophobia, I see it as the player base didn’t like it, so we change it. Not complicated.
Hey I jut wanted to point out WHEN they changed the models hundreds of us who are currently beta testing the expansion and actually playing the Blood Elves were very annoyed. The forum post for fixing them back went for about 50 pages. Oddly a lot of us were women. We liked the contrast! We wanted to play cute unattainable boy elves! But honestly as far as gameplay goes; I can barely tell the difference before and after my mage got beefed up. Honestly I blame homophobia. I played this game for quite some time now and I stopped raiding simply because I got sick of the gay-fag-sick-retarded-newb comments. Its like these guys dont understand 25% of WoW players are women or that possibly any of us could be gay. That tunnel vision is what kills me, did this stupid thingy to a perfect creation, and set the game release date back three months. Good job guys.
And of course no one noticed that the FEMALE Blood Elves apparently have an eating disorder and lack the muscle mass to barely lift a sword nonetheless their oversized heads.
It’s hard to understand how so many people don’t connect the blood elf decision to homophobia, especially given the language of the announcement made by the Blizzard employee. This is not to say that Blizzard is necessarily homophobic, they are a company whose job is to serve a customer base. However, are we really going to pretend that there’s not an inherent homophobia in the attitude that spawns the idea that an effeminate-looking character is uncool and inferior? The prejudace here is implicit, and is more a problem with society than with Blizzard itself (though it’d be cool if they showed a little backbone).
Let’s draw a parallel. What if a dark-skinned humanoid race was implemented, whose skin was later changed to white with an announcement that said “Due to concerns that they looked too ethnic…” Would we really tell people of color in this situation to shut up and stop imagining that this might be a tad racist?
So Blizzard feels they need to make Blood Elves more “menacing.” I happen to have more faith in their producers and art staff than to really think that the only way they can make a character more menacing is to bulk up his biceps. Who’s more menacing: V (V for Vendetta) or Fabio? Who’s more menacing: The Crow or “Fitness Celebrity” John Basedow?
And yeah, it’s hard to reconcile the desire for Blood Elves to be menacing with the fact that the Blood Elf females look like sickly Paris Hiltons whose limbs and necks may snap under their own weight at any moment (and whose emotes make them out to be vapid bimbos).
I’m rather feeling like one of those androids on Star Trek whose heads explode when they encounter a logical paradox that “does not compute.”
TBH I was with you on your first reaction. The change was a reaction to a vastly homophobic backlash. I don’t think you were wrong in calling them on it.
well really I didn’t really think of the old model as “homosexual” looking… more “charismatic” like the Hero in all those Animes that are out these days, I thought it was a great model (espicially for all those fan girls out there, lol)
now as for homosexuals in the gamming community, as a straigh gammer all I have to say is “So?” I don’t care if you’re gay, just so long as you can Heal or Tank! lol.
now yes the negetive term “That’s so gay!” is used often in game(proud to say I haven’t yet said it, that I can atleast remember), but really the problem these days is not that these people who say hates gays, actually I bet half of em don’t care, the problem is that we grew up learning that “gay is bad” and even though most of us got past that, it’s still force of habit to think of it as a negitave term…
it sucks I know, I’d hate if people started using something that totally relates to me as a negative term. but I do believe as this generation is progressing that by next generation gays and lesbians will be a lot more welcomed since we’ve outgrown most of our past generations hate for race, sex, and sexual preferance.
that’s what I think anyways
^ with that said, I agree that they should change the model back.